Beyond the Build

Customer Relationships

Skill vs. Judgment

In the last few days, I was talking with our CFO about what distinguishes between a good hire and an average one. He said something like this:

By watching how someone handles their personal life, we get a good glimpse of how valuable they can be to the company. Character, values and good judgment sometimes make up for a lack of skill. We can teach skill, but not necessarily good judgment.

I agreed. Skill is easy to learn compared to values taught once an adult. Ideally, we make the right hires across the platform, but the first benchmark is character. 

To me and our company, character, values and good judgment make up for a lack of skill in the beginning.

Merrill Stewart Jr.

Merrill Stewart is Founder and CEO of The Stewart/Perry Company, a commercial building contractor based in Birmingham.